State to Require Audit of Electronic Voting Machine Results
None by KCPW
(KCPW News) Elections officials will conduct a statewide audit of one percent of the touch-screen machines used in the coming election by cross-checking vote tallies with the printed paper trail. That's according to a new election audit policy issued by Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert. U of U political scientist Thad Hall was a member of the advisory committee that helped draft the policy:"The whole point of having the voter-verified paper audit trail is to allow for these audits to occur," says Hall. "Lieutenant Governor Herbert wants the candidates to feel confident the state has done all it can to ensure the results of their race are accurate."
Hall says the audit process will be time consuming. Elections officials will have to hand tally the votes on the paper spool and match it to results stored on the machine's memory card.
Salt Lake County elections officials estimate it will take them about 3 days and 25 full-time workers to complete the mandatory audit. The policy calls for a similar check of between three and five percent of the voting machines for races where a recount is called.
The Lieutenant Governor moved to create the policy after questions arose during the primary elections in June.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW
1. Dr June S Taylor said:
Finally - the computer science, scientific community and many concerned voters have been pleading for this for several years.
y'know, the Utah culture is confusing. A huge majority can believe absolutely in stuff they've never seen (angels, golden plates. On the other hand, they refuse to entertain the idea that things will go bad here with DRE voting, based on lots of factual evidence that they CAN go wrong and lots of circumstantial evidence that in many other states they HAVE gone wrong. It's a puzzlement.
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